Am I using the right speaker cables?

There are two things wrong and neither one has anything to do with your components or cables.

Speaker position

Your specific room/you are sitting in a bass null

Fix one or the other or both....walk around the room with good bass music playing, if you find bass you like in a certain area then you can confirm the bass null. 

If you have enough length in your speaker wire(or use less wire just for testing purposes) move your speakers to your seating location.

Now walk around the areas of the room that you would like the speakers to (roughly) be located in. When you hear the bass response you like (with the speakers playing @ your seating position) then you know to position the speakers in the place you are standing to get the bass you want at your seating location.

The positions of the speakers to have optimal performance may not be to your liking but that's the nature of your specific room. If you can't change that your only option would be to use roomEQ (Audyssey for example) balance out the speakers frequencies in the positions you have them placed. 

Eeeez allabout duh speekar cabal bernieen tyme. An don fogat uboad shakey dug muhjeek cheekun phoot ad eeet to. 

+ 1 on the 12tc

I’m with jeneral as far as placement goes. Both where your speakers are AND where your listening position is, have a significant effect on what you hear, bass in particular. I set my gear up with the speakers 1/3 of the way from the front wall and my listening position 1/3 of the way from the rear wall............excellent bass, deeper, tighter, cleaner and everything else improved along with it.........and I don’t have mega-buck cables or interconnects.

You may also consider room treatment...All rooms have problems, all rooms have bass problems. This can be addressed for a very reasonable amount of money and when done well, can make a huge improvement in everything.

I doubt that your cables, any cables, would make as much difference as proper set up.

Until you get your set up right, anything else is a waste of $$$.

+1 shadowcat2016! Speaker placement in a room is the most basic and vital aspect to obtaining optimum SQ!